The present invention relates to a protective cover for keyboard tray and mouse pad. As computers have become a common and necessary piece of equipment in the office and home, over the past decade, numerous industries have evolved to provide support equipment to be used in conjunction with the components of a computer to make the computer easier to use, ergonometrically adjustable, and easier to store when not in use.
One such industry is involved in the development of support devices designed to support computer keyboards while also providing a separate but connected adjustable mouse pad configured to be suspended slightly above or below a region of a keyboard as supported on its support. The more sophisticated such devices are mounted on a bracket including articulating arms and means for fastening the bracket on the undersurface of a desk top.
Companies that sell such bracket systems create demonstration samples that are used to demonstrate them to prospective customers. When such a bracket is actually used, the proximal end of the bracket (remote from the keyboard tray and mouse pad) is typically affixed to the undersurface of a desk top using wood or metal screws or, sometimes, bolts and nuts. Of course, when the salesman is demonstrating the bracket system, an attachment device must be provided to allow the system to be temporarily affixed to the desk top so that its use may be demonstrated without damaging the desk top itself. For this purpose, often, a temporary clamping device is mounted on the bracket which includes a clamping mechanism that may be applied and disengaged without damaging the desk top. With such a temporary clamping device so affixed to the bracket system, the salesman may easily demonstrate the device for a prospective customer.
In practice, it has been found that, when the salesman is transporting the bracket system with its keyboard tray and mouse pad, it is quite easy to damage or physically mar the keyboard tray and/or mouse pad with such damage detracting from the sales demonstration. Accordingly, a need has developed for some means that can be used to protect the keyboard tray and mouse pad from damage during transport but that may be easily removed to permit demonstration of the bracket system. Such a device advantageously would also assist in holding the bracket system in a configuration that permits easy transport.
It is with these needs in mind that the present invention was developed.